Chasing Aunt Jemima
by Maybe
Summary: Short and messy and pointless, much like the life of the ant you just stepped on.


"Chasing Aunt Jemima"  
  
Day 1  
  
It was a pulpy, dark and furious night. Outside the convenience store, rain collected like spit on shiny car hoods. Trenchcoated denizens darted across the parking lot, trying to outpace the rain, ducking under wide umbrellas. All trembled from the cold wind, and frowned gravely at the scent of lightning. On such a night, every kind of danger could buoy up to the surface of the world.  
  
"I LOOOVE MY MAPLE SYRUP! IT'S GOOOD ON PANCAKES, AND WAFFLES, AND PITA BREAD, AND FALAFEL-" None of the other customers seemed to notice the oddity of a small green dog performing some advanced choreography through the aisles, singing about each purchase he dumped into his carriage. And why should they? Gir directed his metal brig with all the precision of a stealth bomber.  
  
Gir loved shopping. He was truly an idiot savant: oh, the sky could be upside down and he wouldn't notice. (Especially since the robot tended to ignore most laws of physics, anyway.) But when food was involved- whether the presence or the smell or the ecstasy of the buying and getting and owning and devouring- Gir was SO there. Truthfully, if Earth were a carton of Ben and Jerry's, he and Zim would pretty much be on the same wavelength.  
So: yeah. Gir, happy. In fact, the robot was so busy in Nirvana, he failed to notice that his costume had gotten snagged by a nail in a shelf, and had since torn cleanly off. He would have kept on not noticing this, if not for the two teenage girls who soon flanked him.  
  
"OH MY GOD!" cried one. "LIKE, OH MY GOD!" agreed the second. "HE IS LIKE, SO CUTE!" commentated the first. "BUT LIKE, WHAT IS HE?" queried the second. "OH MY GOD! I BET HE'S LIKE, ONE OF THOSE NEW ROBOT PET THINGS FROM JAPAN!" the first supposed. "OH. MY. GOD."  
  
And before poor Gir could think to save himself, the two girls grabbed him and starting toting him over their shoulders. All he could do was reach out for his beloved maple syrup, as the automatic doors closed in front of his face and separated the two forever.  
Day 2  
  
It was the kind of morning God might have been proud of. The sun was making its glorious ascent into the heavens, casting the wispy clouds into gentle oranges and purples. The green grass sparkled with baby-fresh dew, and the city was just beginning to murmur with the sounds of life.  
  
The morning sun fell across Zim's pillow to hit him in the face. The little alien jumped out of bed, swiping at it.  
  
"The sun juice, it BURNS," he moaned.  
  
Grumbling, Zim staggered into the kitchen, and blinked. "Gir? Gir!"  
  
There was no cooking smell in the room, and that was strange and bad. Gir loved to cook, and always had greeted Zim in the morning with a pile of french toast and a 45-degree grin.  
  
"Gir?" He tried again. The wind tickled the window curtain, and there was no other answer.  
  
Zim shrugged. "Fmeh," and began the walk to school.  
Day Three  
  
Zim was watching "The Relentlessly Cheerful Furry Moose Show". It was not a series Zim watched. However, it was Gir's favorite, and the fact that Gir was not there watching it bugged Zim so much that it made all work impossible.  
  
It was an annoying show. The robot would have a lot of explaining to do, on why he wasn't there to watch it. When Gir got back, Zim planned, he would be very angry at him.  
Day Four  
  
Zim sat on the couch. It was quiet. It wasn't a good quiet- rather, it was dreadful in the way Zim never thought quiet could be. He could almost hear the plastic flowers lying against each other in their vase.  
  
"Grah!" He knocked the vase over. He felt a little better.  
Day Fifty-Six  
  
Dib was suspicious. Seriously, he had his Suspicious face on and everything.  
  
Zim was obviously plotting something. All class long he was neck-deep in that alien journal of his, no doubt formulating his next horrible scheme of world domination. At least, Dib was kind of hoping so. It'd been awhile... Dib wondered what Superman did in his spare time, when all the villains were napping or whatever. Maybe he took up crocheting. Superman, he looked kinda like a crocheting kind of guy.  
  
Of course, there was Something Else. Zim usually liked plotting. He cackled and stuff. Dib figured, devising plans for planetary conquest was probably right up there with breathing, or masturbating. (Not that Dib ever thought about how aliens masturbated. No siree.) But... Zim didn't look even vaguely amused.  
  
He just looked kinda pissed.  
After school, Dib walked down the steps next to Zim.  
  
"Uh... is, um..." Dib mumbled.  
  
"WHAT, human?"  
  
"Is there, like, something wrong?"  
  
Zim gagged, at the sheer unexpectedness of it. In a rage- his default emotional setting- he threw his notebook at the youth, who then ducked and cringed as the book hit his sister.  
  
Gaz simmered with visible fury for a moment, then continued on in a hunched fashion, the notebook under one arm. The boys watched on, then kind of shrugged and went on walking.  
  
"YOU!" Zim pointed at his archenemy like the motion could make a hole in him. "What have YOU, a petulant flesh covered icky red blobby thing HUMAN, to ask ME if something's wrong?"  
  
Dib rolled his eyes. Hell if he knew. Dib really didn't know why he talked to anyone, really- it just ended up with him being screamed at, in vigor.  
  
"But... I mean, is there?" Zim spasmed, like something large and scaly and Tang-drippy had just crawled up his butt.  
  
"Arrh! It is not any of your CONCERN if there is something WRONG. I am ZIM, soon to be your LORD Zim. All of MY problems are FAR out of the reach of CONTEMPLANCE of you LOWLY Earth lice...things."  
  
They reached the park.  
  
"Uh, okay," Dib bit his lip. "But you know..." God, this felt so weird to say. "If you wanna talk about it, I'm, uh, here. Or something." He turned and began to make his way home, whistling.  
  
Dib stopped. Behind him, there was a sound. A kind of wet and squishy sound, totally unrecognizable to the human ear. Dib turned around slowly, with all the care of someone who is used to being viciously, viciously attacked.  
  
To his utter dumbfoundment, Dib watched Zim, kneeled under a maple tree, sobbing.  
  
Dib blinked several times. Then, he rummaged through his backpack until he'd found his camera. Then he took a couple of pictures. Then he went to see what was wrong.  
  
"Uh, Zim?" he kneeled beside him. Suddenly, Zim sprang up and grabbed him by the collar.  
  
"Gir is GONE. The annoying robot thing is GONE. It doesn't even make sense, ya know? I mean, I thought I'd ENJOY-" flagrant arm flapping- "it if I ever got some peace to myself... so I could work on my conquering and stuff. But without him, there's this HORRIBLE quiet. Like I'm living in this little dark hole with no life and no BREAKING and it's BAD. It's UNSTANDABLE!"  
"Oh. Oh. You should've just said so." It was weird. Part of Dib was totally enjoying Zim's seeming abyss of self- loathing and despair. The other part just felt kinda sorry for him. Zim, like, hadn't even done anything wrong this time.  
  
"Did you try to find him on the sensors?"  
  
"YES. By the Lord of Memex Six, YES."  
  
"Okay, okay... huh. Did you try to find him by scouting the city with your pod cruiser?"  
  
"Of course! I'm not STUPID, Earth vermin!"  
  
"Okay! Jeez, I was just asking a question. I can't help you if you're gonna be hysterical like this."  
  
Zim sniffed back big greenish blobs. They looked kind of acidic, really. "Sorry."  
  
"Now, lemme think..." Dib started to scratch his chin.  
  
He looked up. "Got any coffee? Coffee helps me think."  
  
Zim looked at him like he was the most not-knowing person ever. "I act like this, and you think I don't own caffeinated products?"  
  
"Oh. Right."  
Day Fifty-Nine  
  
It had taken fifty-nine days, but Gir had finally done it. After four picked locks, three feet of fuzzy pink rug, ten of cement, and about fifteen point eight miles of dirt and sandstone, the android had finally dug his way out of the living hell that was a teenage girl's room. (He had tried to simply jump through the window, but that was made of steel- enforced Plexiglas, or some shit.) Although Gir's intelligence could be measured on a ruler, even he had been slowly driven mad by the constant vapid phone conversation and Backstreet Boys blaring on the surround system. Give him Perry Como or give him death. (The writer prefers Morcheeba, but whatever.)  
  
So, after fifty-nine days it came to pass that Gir burst through the floor of his and Zim's living room, his digging spoon held high above his head in victory.  
  
"Now!" he giggled with the mad ecstasy of freedom. "Gir's gonna go get himself back that maple syrup!"  
Day Sixty  
  
Zim and Gir sat on their couch and watched the moose show together. It felt really good to be a kinda family again. Gir sucked on his maple syrup like he was making love to a fine woman, while Zim wished the writer could think of some better damn metaphors.  
  
"Now," Zim muttered. "I guess the temporary truce between me and the Meat Boy is now ended. GOOD. Good. Perfect."  
  
Gir nodded. "Yeah! It would be a boring, boring thing if Zim and Dib stopped fighting!"  
  
Zim thought about this, then kind of shrugged.  
****************  
  
"I guess the truce between me and the Alien is over, now. That's good...I guess. Yeah. Good. Perfect."  
  
"Frmeh," Gaz muttered, playing her Gameboy on the couch. Dib looked up from his book.  
  
"Hey, what was in that notebook of his, anyway? Anything really diabolical?"  
  
Gaz focused furiously at the game as she grumbled, "Angsty poetry shit." Dib blinked, then burst out laughing.  
  
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" Dib crawled back onto the recliner, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Oh man, that's frickin' hilarious. Zim as Sylvia Plath, I love it." He climbed back upon his ass. "But seriously, Gaz-"  
  
But she'd already left the room. 


End file.
